Just the Beginning
by Patars16
Summary: This is a short story about a girl named Nichole, who lives in Pewter City. It is just beginning of a longer much more elaborate story following a trainer named Jacob in his travels through Kanto.


March was a season of change for the Kanto region. The weather finally started to warm up from winter, and the wild pokemon of Viridian Forest were coming out of their hiding places in groves. It was the perfect time of the year for Nichole's mom to send her outside to play. She was never alone however; Nichole wasn't allowed to leave the house without Machop. Machop was her constant companion, and although she was too young to be a trainer, she liked to battle with the wild pokemon in the forest anyways. On this particular day, March 16th, Nichole was kicked out of the house as always, right after breakfast.

"You can't come back inside until dinner time sweety, mommy has a lot of work to do today. Why don't you go check out what's going on in the forest? I packed lunch for the two of you in your backpack. Make sure you stay with machop! And stay away from strangers!" She closed the door. Nichole turned and started walking towards the edge of town.

"Well… what are we going to do today Mr. Chop? Do you wanna try to find another pineco? It was so hard last time!" Machop gave her a quick salute and trotted a long by her side. "Chop!" There was no time to for Nichole to just sit around that day, she was on a mission. Pineco were extremely uncommon for the Kanto region, but still Nichole had managed to find several hanging from tree branches on the edge of the forest. She and machop spent most of their days looking for rare pokemon, but usually they came home disappointed.

"I have a feeling that today is going to be a great day, Mr. Chop." Mr. Chop was Nichole's nickname for him, and he enjoyed it. Everyone else called him machop. "Chop?" Machop looked questioningly at Nichole. "That's right! We are going to find a super rare pokemon today for sure!" The path to the forest from Pewter City took the average trainer an hour to walk, but for an excited eight-year-old Nichole, it only took half of that. When they arrived at the forests edge, they stopped to inspect the nearest trees for the elusive Pineco. They didn't have any luck that day because Nichole couldn't stop talking. Most pokemon were scared off by her, and the two rarely ran in to any wild pokemon on their adventures. That wasn't always the case however.

"Chu?" A wild pichu was standing eye level with Nichole on a tree branch in front of her. He was clutching a glowing yellow ball about the size of his chest with his hands. He cocked his head slightly to the right, looking at her intently, trying to figure out what she was. "Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! IT'S SO CUTE!" Nichole was practically screaming. Machop jumped straight into the air and landed flat on his face, taken totally surprise by the random outburst. "Chu!" Pichu jumped from the branch, startled, and landed on Nichole's head, grabbing on to her hair for support. "Owwww! Get off me! GET. OFF!" Nichole stopped squirming and grabbed pichu by the legs. Pichu fell off of her on to the ground. "Pi!" He was up and dashing away before the duo even had a chance to realize what had happened. Machop tried to chase after him, but pichu had disappeared as quickly as he showed up.

Nichole picked her glasses up off the ground and felt the top of her head. "Great Mr. Chop, I think he took some of my hair with him! And look at this, mom's gunna kill me if she sees that I broke my glasses again. This my third pair this year. I can NOT believe this. Come on Mr. Chop, he ran off in that direction, let's go get my hair back!" "Machop machop!" Machop was blushing, embarrassed after falling on his face, but he saluted and ran after Nichole. Nichole in front and Machop right behind her, the two ran in the direction of the hair-pulling, glasses-breaking poop-head, or at least that's what Nichole kept saying under her breath as they ran. Four hours of searching later, the two finally found him. Pichu was building a nest under a nearby rock, completely unaware of their presence. Nichole held her hand up towards machop, and the two stopped moving. They watched him quietly for over a half hour as he thread brunette strips through the sides of the grass and straw nest. The two slowly crept closer, trying to get a good look at what was inside the nest. Eventually they saw the contents, three baby rattata.

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Nichole couldn't be quiet any longer; a half hour had been too long for her. "Chu!" Pichu quickly turned towards her, growling threateningly. "Okay okay, you can keep my hair; I promise I won't tell anyone that I saw you here!" Nichole and machop started to back up slowly, trying to not startle the babies or Pichu any further. They were almost far enough to walk away, but the sound of a second pokemon growling made them stop.

"Uh-oh, I think that's the mother Mr. Chop. We might be in trouble" Nichole hid behind machop as the mother rattata chased them further away from the nest. Pichu approached the new arrival. The rattata instantly stopped growling once it spotted Pichu, and the two rubbed their noses together affectionately. Pichu patted rattata on the head and gestured towards Nichole. "Pi pi pi, chu pichu pi!" Rattata looked at Machop and Nichole and then hung her head. Machop took the temporary peace as an opportunity to talk to her. The three pokemon talked for the next hour as Nichole watched in amazement. Occasionally one of the pokemon gestured or looked at her, but for the most part they acted like she didn't exist. While she waited, Nichole tried to keep herself busy. She checked her shirt for pit-stains, and was very unhappy to discover that her bright green shirt was fading to white already. "Poop, mom told me I wasn't supposed to run around in this shirt." She thought out loud. She pursed her lips and scrunched her face, green was very important to her, and ruining a perfectly good green t-shirt was very upsetting.

The pokemon eventually worked out their differences, and Nichole stopped picking a scab on her arm when a very loud BANG rang through the air. Everyone jumped, and pichu ran towards the noise. Rattata ran to protect her nest, and machop grabbed Nichole's hand and sped off in the opposite direction. "Whaaaaaaats gooooooooiiiiiiiiiinnnnng oooooonnnnnnn!" Nichole dragged out her words as she ran as fast as she could. The loud banging continued, but eventually the sounds grew quieter and stopped altogether. It didn't take them long to find their way back to where the two were looking for pineco earlier. Nichole pulled their sandwiches out of her backpack and handed one to machop. The two sat down at the edge of the trees and tried to enjoy their lunch but all Nichole could think about was what happened to the poor hair-weaving pichu. Even though she was far enough away avoid the mysterious banging noises, she knew that something must still be going on.

"I wonder if pichu is gunna be okay. Maybe we should go looking for him." Nichole was visibly worried. Machop shook his head. He wasn't willing to risk her being in danger to take her looking for pichu. "Chop machop." He stated matter-of-factly. "Fine, but we are going to look for more pineco." The next two hours was spent looking for pineco in the trees surrounding the path. "Hey, what's that?" Nichole squinted, with her glasses broken, she could not see well at all. "Chop?" Machop saw it too, an unnatural heap in the grass. They ran towards it. "Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh what do we do? He's breathing! Let's get him back to the house machop, grab his arms." The boy was unconscious, and Nichole couldn't wake him up, she shook his shoulders and slapped his face a couple of times. "Get away from him! Machop, pull!" She drop kicked a particularly large Pikachu who dropped out of a tree on top of the boy. Machop started dragging the boy down the path by his arms. The Pikachu glared at Nichole as he ran away. Machop pulled the boy for the next 45 minutes, but eventually let go and stopped walking. He was exhausted. The trip home was going very slowly, as machop was not used to doing very much heavy physical work. He did chores for Nichole's mom, but that is as far as his experience went.

"Mr. Chop. You can't stop now! We're not home yet! Ugh fine I'll do it." Nichole grabbed the boy's arms and pulled. They didn't move. She strained herself, still no movement. "Well this sucks, what if he's seriously injured?" "Chop…" Machop was worried too, but he was out of energy. "Poop. Yeah, okay sit down, don't try to help. Thanks Mr. Chop." She glared at machop while she tried to pull him forwards for another few minutes. Finally giving up, she sat down next to her pokemon. Before long, she noticed someone was watching her from behind a tree. "Uh… hi?" The girl behind the tree waved. "Hi." "Yeah, hi, why are you staring at us?" Nichole was annoyed. "Oh, uh, I thought you guys looked like you need some help, with uh, pulling that boy." The girl said timidly. "Yea, we do, grab an arm and let's get him to my house. I'm Nichole by the way; I'm assuming you have a name too." Nichole held out her hand towards the girl.

"I'm Lily. Nice to meet you." She kissed Nichole's hand. "Uhhhhhhhh okay? You're weird, but whatever. Let's just do this." The next half hour was spent in total silence as the girls dragged the boy's still unconscious body to Nichole's front door. Machop followed slightly behind them, watching out for any rogue pikachu looking to attack the boy again. Nichole's mom saw them through a window and came running out to meet them. "Nichole, where have you been? I've been worried sick! It's almost dark! Who is this? Who are you? Why do you have an unconscious boy between you?" "Mommy… uh.. this is Lily, she helped me get him here. I found him unconscious back in Viridian forest. I think he might be hurt." Lily was only able to stay for a few minutes before she had to run home herself, leaving Nichole and her mom with the random forest boy. Mandy, Nichole's mom, carried the boy on to Nichole's room and placed him on her bed. "Okay honey, can you watch him for a while? I'm going to call his parents and go shopping for some groceries before the store closes. Make sure he gets what he needs if he wakes up." "Otay mom, I'll take care of him I promise!" Soon the two were alone, and Nichole was bored. She sat on the end of the bed Indian style, cracking her toes over and over again. After an hour of doing this, she saw she had a visitor at the window. "Pichu! I'm so glad you're alright!" She opened the window, and pichu jumped. He ran straight for the boy and started bouncing on his chest.

"Do you two know each other? Did he have something to do with the loud boom sounds? You must be his pichu… I gotta pee!" Nichole skipped out of the room. As she headed back, she heard voices coming from the room. "Oh… hey, you're awake. It's about time! Mom says you can stay here for as long as you need to." She sat down on the end of the bed. "Hi! I'm Jacob!" The boy tried to sit up, but fell back in to the pillow, groaning loudly. "Oh my gosh! My name is Nichole; it's nice to meet you Jacob! You should probably keep your head down for a while. Mom says it's lucky I found you, but I'm not so sure cuz I have to sleep in the living room now." Nichole crept closer to Jacob slowly. "Oh, I can move if you need your bed. I'm sorry" Jacob blushed.

I'm sorry it ends abruptly, I'm not quite finished with the story. I just wanted to see people's reactions to it. This is a short story written to develop certain characters in my main story better.


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